A weary man’s utopia

A introduction and review of a little-known story by Borges.

Many people who have read the works of Jorge Luis Borges have, for whatever reason, most likely only read the handful of his stories and essays that are included within the compilation known as “Labyrinths”. I myself was once only familiar with the many well known classics that it contains. “Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius”, “The garden of forking paths”, “The library of Babel” are all found within this compilation, and are among the most well known and most discussed stories that he ever wrote.

But as anyone who develops a more than casual interest in Borges inevitably learns, he wrote far more besides these popular tales. Borges wrote many stories and essays that for whatever reason could not arouse much interest among the public, and so remained obscure out of indifference rather than any genuine difficulty in finding them. From within the compilation called “The book of sand” I’ve decided to talk about one of his more obscure and unusual stories.

“A weary man’s utopia” is one of the few attempts Borges ever made to write about the two tropes so central to Science fiction, life in the future and time travel. The plot of this story can be summarised as so;

The protagonist, a Professor of Literature named Eudoro Acevedo, while walking in some undisclosed plain-land, comes across a low and rectangular cottage. He is invited inside by its owner, a rather odd man who is unusually tall, vested in grey clothes, and only speaks Latin. Without much fanfare or surprise, this odd man casually explains to Eudoro that he is currently far in the future, and that he is not the first to find himself in this place. He also reassures him that he will most likely return home by the next day. They then introduce themselves and talk about their respective times.

During the conversation between the Odd Man and Eudoro, we learn that in the future (the exact date is unknown, but is assumed to be at least thousands of years from now) most of mankind have essentially given up most of what we would consider “civilisation” and “Society”. All governments and nations have dissolved due to the indifference of humanity, people have abandoned industrial production and money in favour of DIY manufacturing, everyone has “returned” to speaking Latin and writes in a “Runic script”, most people have only one child and commit suicide when they are sufficiently old, humans have evolved more dexterous fingers, greater height, can live for centuries and have the ability to see currently invisible colours. They also have little interest in history or names, hence why the “Odd Man” is nameless.

As they talk, the Odd Man gives Eudoro a tour of his home and his many handmade possessions, one of which is a painting of a sunset that he gives to him as a gift. Their conversation is abruptly ended when a woman and two men enter the house. They gather as much of the odd man’s stuff as they can carry, then they all walk towards a domed tower that the odd man explains is a crematorium. He bids Eudoro goodbye, then walks towards it, since he has apparently decided that he has lived long enough.

Despite the apparent oddity of this story, it shares a few themes with some of Borges’ more well-known works. The future people of “The Weary Man’s Utopia” have a very similar “vibe” to the society of immortal troglodytes featured in “The Immortals” since both live reclusive and introverted lifestyles, and favour abstract thought over paying much attention to the mundane world. And the suggestion that the printing of books is odious because it multiplies unnecessary texts is similar to the belief espoused in “Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius” that mirrors are abominable because they multiply the number of men, and the belief of that sect in “The Library of Babel” that all the meaningless books of the infinite library should be burned until only the readable books remain.

Another interesting subject that is discussed between the Odd Man and Eudoro is the “evil” of printing and the news. It is prompted by the Odd Man showing Eudoro an interesting treasure of his, an original 1518 print of Thomas Moore’s “Utopia”. Eudoro’s response to seeing a collectable antique is to denigrate it by mentioning that he has two thousand printed books in his personal library. The Odd Man’s reaction is simply to mention that printing is considered the greatest evil of mankind since to multiplied unnecessary texts, and that no one could truly read two thousand books properly since one must read a book multiple times to fully understand it. Eudoro then talks about the news, which talks of trivialities that are considered of utmost importance to know until they are forgotten the moment a new triviality emerges. As mentioned before, there is a hint of “The Library of Babel” in this exchange since that story also involves a proliferation of “unnecessary” books that provoked some people to burn them in order to leave worthier books intact. But nonetheless, the inclusion of a dialogue about the “Evil” of mass printing books and newspapers seems a bit out of character for Borges, a man notorious for being a book-loving academic, to include in a story set in the future. I wonder if his reason for writing this was inspired by two things that many bibliophiles and intellectuals worry about at least occasionally, which is whether they buy too many books that they never get around to reading or fully appreciating , and concern about the effects of “lowbrow” literature and newspapers on the minds of the public.

Something else that became apparent as I studied this story closely, is that you notice a few inconsistencies between what the Odd Man says the future is like, and what happens in the story. The most obvious example happens at the end, when the Odd Man asks the Woman how “Nils” , heavily implied to be his son, is getting along. This belies the Odd Man’s claim that his people don’t care about names. Another inconsistency is the choice of the future-people, who supposedly don’t care about history or precision, to speak the notoriously precise and historical Latin language. I wonder if this was an oversight on Borges’ part, or a deliberate inclusion for the purpose of making the future of this story more believable by introducing one of the most realistic characteristics of every culture, a gap between what people say their society is all about and how it works, and what it usually does in everyday life.

As I close this essay, I should point out one last detail that I came across, which adds a certain depth and uncertain meaning to the story. The last name of the protagonist is shared by Borges’ own mother, Leonor Acevedo, who died a year after this story was first published.